Department of English

Topic: "Making a Story Called Home"

Figuring out how fiction works is like making a home in the world. This course examines basic elements and strategies of storytelling and of home-making through the lenses of displacement and disconnection, as well as hospitality and healing. Learning objectives:

• To develop and practice skills for the analysis of short stories and novels
• To write intelligently and persuasively about works of literary fiction
• To relate stories and novels to their social, cultural, and historical contexts
• To understand the relevance of stories and novels in addressing issues in society today
• To try fiction's power of "what if": imagining how the world as it is could be different

Readings may include a number of short stories, a film, and two novels (Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees and Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony).

In addition to active participation in class discussion, written assignments will include

1. a number of quizzes and interpretation exercises, designed to help cultivate critical readings skills that will, in turn, enrich your reading pleasure;
2. three informal, exploratory writings (600+ words) focusing on critical problems; and
3. a 5-page critical analysis of one of the novels.

• A&H
• IW
• What are CASE requirements?